The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-11-25
AMERICAN GYPs1Bs ON THE MOVE.
The Wild, Wandering Life of a People
With Millions of Dollars.
from the pittsbnrn Dispntch.

From the Pitts6urg Dispatch.
From Nov. to Nov. l5 the great move
ment of American gypsies from their wan
dering merripen, or life, upon the road to
winter quarters is in full progress. Some
begin to fly from the frosty days a month
earlier. Others wait with dogged sort Of
clinging to the tent-homes until fairly driv-
enfrom them by bowling December storms.
Frequently the larger bands divide into
several smaller portions. These gradually
work their way back from extreme northern
points, to their winter homes in cities and
towns, or to where the climate is tolerable
for little longer stay in their loved out-of-
door existence. Their far annual pilgrim
ings are remarkable. | have visited gypsy
bands in New Brunswick whose members
owned property in Central Texas Begin
ming on February they are travelling leis-
urely in the finest of wagons, and with
droves of the finest horses, trading, selling,
dickering, telling fortunes along, as the sea-
son advanced, fairly coming with the
spring from the South, until June found
them, like many more aristocratic wan
derer, along the shores of the noble st,
CroiX. During September they would trav-
erse the New England States. In October
they We're across New York and Pennsyl-
vania and well into Kentucky; and before
the Christmas tide had come they were back
at their own home for a two-month putter
and preparation for the next February de-
parture, perhaps, across Missouri and
Iowa, away into the dingles of the Sank
River Valley of Minnesota. These annual
journeys often amount to 5000 miles, an al
most incomprehensibled distance when their
apparent ceaseless roadside tarryings are
considered.
| have no doubt that half million of the
million and half gypsies we now have
among us are what are known among the
Romany as drom gypsies, that is, gypsies
of the road; gypsies whose heritage of pa
triarchal ana pilgriming tradition will no
more permit them to herd in towns, save
out of necessity, than will foxes. OF these,
as have previously stated in print, | have
names and addresses of nearly a thousand
heads of families, or petty tribes, whose
combined wealth exceeds $780, 900.
Hosts aside from these have gained, or are
securing, little properties. These largely
consist of fine farms, country taverns
stands, toll gate privileges, tracts of wood
lands of which they are very fond, livery
and sales stables in the smaller towns and
villages, and, not infrequently, extensive
town properties, particularly the larger
sales stables in metropolitan cities Thou
sands upon thousands are able tC
live comfortably without effort up
on rentals aud other incomes. But
they are never idle, and they never fail of
passing some portion of each summer upon
the road. Their tradings, or preparations
for trading, never cease. Nor does their
fortune telling, for the wife of a gypsy
worth a quarter of a million and l have
the acquaintance of more than one of these
will as nimbly tell your fortune for silver
as would the wife of the most poverty
stricken gypsy tinker ever helped solder g
pan or patch kettle.